


Stygian Post

by fadeverb



Series: Leo [25]
Category: In Nomine
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-05
Updated: 2013-10-15
Packaged: 2017-12-28 11:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 19,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/991432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fadeverb/pseuds/fadeverb
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What could be more relaxing than a Stygian vacation?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which We Take A Vacation

Visiting Stygia was not my first choice. It wasn't my second choice, or my third, and honestly I don't think it would've made it onto the list at all except that Zhune started talking about taking us to Australia for a month, and if there's anything more hellish than Hell itself, it's been locked into a tiny pressurized metal room for most of a day while wedged into an airline's idea of sufficient leg room. Stygia turned out to be the compromise option, for values of "compromise" that involved Zhune listing successively less pleasant options until I gave in and picked one.

I'm not sure how this is supposed to be a vacation. The only benefit of visiting Hell is that you can't get to Trauma from there, and given the continual possibility of souldeath after a really bad bar fight, I'm not sure I even count that as a plus.

The first stop on our exciting trip through the land of cold winds, sharp rocks, and demons ready to coerce you into voting for their candidate in a meaningless election while someone else riffles through your pockets, is a pawn shop. This Principality has pawn shops the way Seattle has coffee shops: one on every block, and often one on every corner, facing each other across the street and pretending to some kind of rivalry while probably owned by the same people at the top anyway.

Zhune is pretending to let me make the decisions for a while. My big decision today: picking the pawn shop. It's amazing the power doesn't go to my head. I walked into one with some decent clothing hanging in the window, and I'm trying not feel like I'm in some demonic version of Goodwill while haggling with the Shedite at the counter about how much for a complete set of replacement clothing. I have been wearing two thirds of a Baalite uniform since I first arrived in Stygia, and lost half my clothing on that Shal-Mari trip. A t-shirt advertising a Vapulan tech shop does not count as proper Calabite clothing. If I have to come back home periodically, I am going to wear something I have _chosen_ , even if I'm not very fond of it.

Though in this case I'm just trying to choose something that won't stand out in Stygia. The Servitors of Theft around here seem evenly split between stylish pomp, like Henry's top hat or Zhune's vessel-appearance with its tailored suits, and murky lurking clothes. (At least catsuits don't seem to be in fashion.) Factions is more fractured, with the philosophy clubs having a horrible tendency towards berets, political candidates dressing up, surreptitious operators all trying to blend in with the local crowd, and a horrible preponderance of gaudy t-shirts advertising those aforementioned political candidates.

Damned souls wear all sorts of things, but that is not a fashion direction anyone trends towards deliberately.

Zhune has wandered off to another part of the shop, bored with negotiations, and I almost have the Shedite argued down to four Essence. "I could," it says, desperately chipper for one last try, "include this charming ring. It'd slide right onto one of your horns, and that makes the ensemble really...hang together. Five Essence."

"Look," I say, "I realize you have a quota, but you can take four Essence nearer to that quota, or I can walk across the street and leave you that much further away from being able to close up for the day. Do I look like I want horn jewelry?"

"You never know," mutters the Shedite, and sighs. "Four Essence, but you change here. I don't want any merchandise walking out in your pockets from the changing room."

This would be a more convincing bargaining point if I hadn't already swapped out of my uniform pants into a pair of jeans with knees almost worn through while Zhune was asking the clerk pointed questions about a set of philosophical pamphlets in the glass case by the register. I shuck off my shirt, and toss it onto the counter, then pull on the replacement. Button-down and mottled in black and gray, without looking a damn thing like camouflage. It's a pain to get my wings through the slits in the back; the vast majority of my experience in getting dressed does not involve wings. Or horns. It's a good thing I am not that into hats.

"Your lack of trust wounds me," I say, once I have the wings sorted there, and push four Essence into the reliquary. Most shops have them bolted to the counter; this one's reliquary is an enormous statue of a naked Impudite, anatomically correct and painted to life-like colors that are now flaking off on the hand where most customers grab it to pass the Essence over. I'm not sure I'd be willing to have that statue in my possession even for the sake of the Essence inside; it may be the safest storage unit for the stuff in all of Stygia.

"So very sorry, sir," the Shedite says blandly, and keeps several eyes from its goopy center trained on me while I get the jacket worked on. Dark blue, when I might've preferred gray, but this is better for fitting in with the locals. Besides, it's not trying to be pretentious or classy. Practical cut, and a good number of pockets. "Are you sure I can't interest you in any literature?"

"I'm not interested in philosophy." I sit on the edge of the counter and thump my combat boots onto the glass as I pull them off. This outfit would cost more if I weren't trading in some sturdy equipment on the way. The boots are tougher and more expensive than the thin black sneakers I'm pulling on, and the next time I get into a fight with a lot of kicking involved, maybe I'll regret the swap. For now, I will take something that looks nothing like what you'd find any Servitor of the War wearing in Gehenna, on the battlefield or off.

It's at this point that I realize Zhune's not in the shop anymore.

"We have some fiction," the Shedite says, and it's not even trying to sound enthusiastic. "There's a compilation of War Lilim Veronica in excellent condition, aside from that one bloodstain, that might interest you. Very popular with Calabim."

I tie my shoelaces, and drop back to the floor. "Anything by Jane Austen? The Brontes?" I get nothing but blank stares in return. "George Eliot?"

"I think there's a G. Eliot who writes Lust pulps," the Shedite says. "Taming The Seraph? I can check for a copy--"

"No, I think I'm good." For horrible stuck-in-Hell values of good. I give the grubby shop one last look in case Zhune only stepped behind something while my back was turn, but there's no sign of an elegant Djinn anywhere in here. "Is there anything _interesting_ to do in this neighborhood?"

"Political rally at seven," the Shedite says promptly. "And a competing philosophical lecture across the street, at the Miss Mark." It adds, as I clearly have no idea what that is, "The old theater. You should go to the rally. I'll be there myself, if I make quota by then. Tonight's lineup of questions for the candidates looks to be interesting, and the moderator has promised to suspend everyone over pits of demonlings. Go over your time limit on answering a question, or fail to provide citations for numerical assertions on request, and into the pit you go."

"What fun," I say. The Shedite sounds outright enthusiastic about it. "Which candidate do you support?"

"I couldn't know yet," it says earnestly. "They haven't done enough debates. I need to know how they stand on _all_ the issues before I cast my votes."

I have no idea how the local non-democracy works, and probably it would only make my head hurt to try to find out. I can almost understand sometimes why so many other Calabim decide to skip the thinking stage of decision-making and just blow shit up.

"Maybe I'll swing by," I say, and give the Shedite a nice smile on the way out. Never hurts to keep people happy if I might need to deal with them again, and I get a hopeful wave out of it in return.

Zhune's not visible out on the street. Not much is. Hell's not big on the whole concept of having a sky in the first place, and Stygia's more cavern-based in theme than the rest of it. The street, paved in uneven stones, would give two cars difficulty in passing each other safely, and has no sidewalks, and I can still barely make out the signs on the buildings opposite me. The usual cutting wind has been replaced in this place with a cold fog that pools in corners and spreads halos of fuzz around the electric lights.

An overbuilt black car rumbles down the street, windows too dark to make out anyone inside. No headlights, either, because who wants to make a target of themselves? I cross the street fast as soon as it's passed, and step on a demonling chewing on something in a pothole. The critter squawks, nips ineffectively at my shoes, and scrambles away to lurk in a sewer grate instead. No wonder I got such a good price on those boots.

Nothing on this side of the street is labeled as the Miss Mark, in any language that I know. But a creaky old theater, its roof lined in actual stone gargoyles (with gargoyle-shaped demonlings lurking between them), has a sign in fading gilt that's spelled out in Greek letters. Can't read them, but how many theaters could be around here? And a poster behind cracked glass advertises a lecture tonight by a Habbalite of Fate speaking on relativity.

Fine print clarifies that the lecture will cover both physics and morality, which is almost tempting. But I expect Zhune will track me down again well before then.

The front door swings open silently at a touch. Stygia is not big on creaking hinges, except for deliberate effect. I step into a lobby lined in threadbare red carpet, a series of dim chandeliers overhead keeping the place lit marginally better than the street. Two human souls respectively armed with a broom and polishing rag glance up as I enter, and direct their cleaning further away from me.

An imp behind the concessions counter straightens up on its stool as it spots me. Or as she spots me, I suppose; this one's trending hards towards human form, and is probably a Force away from fledging Impudite. She adjusts her uniform cap, and waits with an attentive look that's well into anxiety. As if being exceedingly polite might keep her safe, but only _might_.

I'm one Calabite, and I can't walk into a half-empty theater in Stygia without everything smaller than me acting like I'm about to rip their heads off for giggles. Why Zhune thinks this is a vacation spot I will never understand.

I stroll up to the counter with my hands in my pockets. There's no sign of an actual ticket booth, nor so much as posted prices for concessions, though popcorn sits in greasy white heaps inside a case by a hopeful stack of brown paper bags. "Do you actually show any movies in here? Or is it all lectures now?"

"It's mostly lectures, sir," the imp squeaks. Demonlings are not children, and yet she's doing a good impression of a human child, if from one of those eras where they started working in the factories at four years old. Her eyes are enormous, outsized for her face, and her skin is pale. Maybe she'll be a nervous little Habbalite when she fledges, instead of Impudite. "We don't show any of the second run releases, and they won't let the first run stuff out of Shal-Mari because of the exclusive contracts with the--oh, I'm sorry, you _know_ this." She chews on the talon of her left thumb. "I could call the manager, if you want a movie? She plays old ones, if you...like old movies. They're very old. Sometimes they don't even have sound."

"Never mind." I should go somewhere that I won't find anyone who'd remind me of Katherine. You'd think that would be easy, in Hell. Not a lot of kids hit their Fates, and the rare ones that do are usually swiped for private collections, not wandering around free. And aside from their destructive tendencies, demonlings aren't anything like her. They're more like chatty wild animals than children.

I don't even know why I'm thinking about her. She's in her teens by now. Taking SATs and working out what colleges she wants to apply to. Better off wherever she is now than she'd be with--wherever she'd be if I hadn't sent her away. Which is probably true for most people I've gotten too attached to.

Zhune aside. I can't really hurt him anyway.

Heels click down a set of stairs I can't see, and I pause on my way back to the door out of one part curiosity and two parts not wanting to stand around in the fog looking like an abandoned dog until Zhune catches up with me. I should be able to entertain myself for a few hours in his absence in my own Prince's territory.

The Impudite who steps into the lobby is dressed for the wrong era. Her red dress wants to be worn by a dangerous woman with a dark secret in an old movie, and I can't remember the last time I saw someone wearing a square hat with a decorative black veil. (Except I can remember the last time I saw that: on figments playing to the local theme, in a Domain that believed strongly it still belonged to a different era.) Her wings drift behind her, their leather darker black than the shadows outside. In that dress, she stands out in the dark doorway where she's paused like a splash of blood.

She looks me up and down, thoughtful and not visibly afraid. Which is probably a worse sign than the reverse, but I am not particularly worried about being jumped by Impudites, even in Hell. "Well," she says. "Are you here early, or in the wrong place?"

"I can't be here for the old movies?" I turn on a smile, neither so charming as to compete with the Impudite niche nor particularly dangerous. Something polite and impersonal.

"It would be a unique act for this month," she says, stepping out of the doorway, "though not entirely unprecedented. What's driven you to an interest in such antiquated things?"

"The fact that the pawn shops don't carry any old books."

Her smile is sudden, and gone as fast as it arrived. "Then come along." She sweeps past me, and I follow her to a set of double doors, their brass panels worn and still polished to the best shine they can manage. "We'll have to clear out in two hours to allow staff time for the lecture setup."

"That involves more than a glass of water and a podium?" I blink a few times as I step into a thorough darkness, until my eyes adjust enough that I can make out the dim shape of rows of seats marching down the slanted floor to the stage. This must have been a theater of the live performance sort, once; the movie screen is set back yards from the edges of the stage, and heavy curtains hang at the sides, a darker red than the Impudite's dress.

"Habbalah enjoy props," she says, and leads the way halfway down the aisle, then indicates a row. "There. The best seat in the house, bar the projectionist's booth. I hope your tastes are eclectic, as I have no intention of adjusting mine to suit yours."

"If I find it terribly uninteresting," I say, "I can always leave."

She turns her head in my direction, expression unreadable in the darkness. "You were up there, once."

I can't have heard that right. "Excuse me?"

"Private showing. Private video. A huddle of demons pretending no one saw them sneaking in separately. They checked under every seat and blocked the doors before they began the playback, but they always forget the projectionist's seat." She brushes past me, the edge of her wing clipping against mine. "They had assembled a series of videos of the Princes of Stygia. In one clip, the Demon Prince of Theft walked down a street not five minutes away from here, with a Cherub on a ribbon. Only a handful of Servitors in his wake, and I remember your face, Destroyer." She's reached the double doors again, her voice as clear from there as it was beside me. I wonder if she used to act on the stage. "It's not of any consequence. I simply thought that was interesting. Enjoy the show."

The doors let in a wash of gray light, then close it out again as she leaves.

I take the seat she indicated. It takes some shifting around to get my wings into a comfortable position, despite the seat back having spaces to arrange them. Vessel form is more convenient than all these extra bits of horns and wings that don't do me a bit of good.

Not thinking about the idea of very selective fame in Stygia. The less attention I pay to it, the less likely anyone else is to remember in a few more years.

After a few minutes, a white square of light, dust-spotted and with a hair flickering across one edge, appears on the screen. And then the movies begin.

The first movie is only five minutes long. It's a brisk telling of the Rebellion, in silent black and white that skips jerkily between scenes. The creation of Eden, and Lilith's escape. Adam and Eve pawing at trees and at each other, dim-eyed souls who were probably fortunate not to need to remember any lines. The Balseraph who plays the part of Lucifer's messenger is lovely, twining between the fake trees of the garden set so delicately that even the age of the film can't disguise her grace. Lucifer's protest against being set below such creatures as humans, the attack by Metatron and his defense, and this production does its best to imply that Michael didn't so much cast anyone out of Heaven as ambush a set of serene and solemn beings who were attempting to leave in peace.

The Michael of the film looks nothing like the Archangel I once met. Which has nothing to do with vessel forms compared to a Balseraph playing at being a Seraph, and more to do with... I don't know. Presence. The way he moves. They chose an actor who couldn't project any sense of command, and I suppose that was deliberate. You would not want to imply that setting up shop in an entirely different part of the celestial plane was anything other than a deliberate winning movie. I would not be surprised if they've done this same story recast for other historical eras, with Hell always as the brave rebels against the oppressive tyrants. The American Revolution and the French Revolution, the Haitian Revolution when focusing on Lilith's part...

Oh, we are always the brave underdogs, the stalwart defenders of freedom and choice and self-determination, of proving ourselves better than the monkeys. You can tell how free we are by the way well-trained demonlings cower in my presence, in case I decide to freely shred them.

The next film is a dramatic story of love across enemy lines. Ten minutes long, with dialogue displayed as text periodically. The lovely Impudite has fallen in love with a Mercurian, who loves him back but claims she can never leave Heaven. They swap messages, sigh dramatically to sympathetic friends, meet in secret, exchange lingering glances from opposite windows. When Judgment sends a pack of human policemen out to hunt down the Impudite, the Mercurian frets for several dramatic moments, then leaps in to save her lover.

The former Mercurian looks much better as the Impudite the actress really is with the fake feathers and halo removed. Which I suppose is the point as well.

The third movie has sound, and it's something...political. A political thriller? An actual propaganda film for some Stygian political campaign of the 1930s? It's all set in Hell, and the dramatic scheming is too convoluted to follow. Everyone's plotting against everyone else, and the only character of interest is a clever gremlin that swears it's loyal to every single other major character and really spying on the other ones.

During some interminable debate scene, Zhune settles into the seat beside me, and passes me a bag of popcorn. "I thought," he says, "I'd find you in a bar."

"Sh. They're about to reveal who betrayed who to the Game first."

"I've seen this one," he says. "Everyone ends up executed except for the gremlin. The sequel was better."

"Stop talking over the movie, Zhune."

He snorts, but settles down in the seat, and leaves me to watch the rest of the movie in peace. And he's right. Everyone gets executed, except for the gremlin, who turns out to be an exceptionally clever Servitor of Dark Humor. The actor's good, even if the movie was dull. If I cared about this sort of thing, I'd try to track down whatever else it was in.

I make Zhune sit through a propaganda short about the promotion benefits of Hell (compared to the stagnation of Heaven, where ancient beings hold onto all the power and will never let you advance), and a nonsensical science fiction serial with a pair of stalwart Vapulans traveling through time to determine the date of the first true human soul. At which point the popcorn is gone and my wings are cramping, so I have pity on both of us and leave the room.

"I'm surprised this place is still going," Zhune says in the lobby, with a brief glance to confirm that no one else there is dangerous or worth robbing. "Thought it would shut down after Marquette disappeared in the 50s."

"You really do know everyone in Stygia." I toss the empty popcorn bag into a trash can, and realize I am in no hurry to walk back outside. The cold and the fog and the ominous lurking in obligatory shadows... Maybe we could stay for the lecture after all.

"People here and there. Her apprentice must've kept it going."

"I did," says the Impudite. She's standing in the same doorway as before, but this time I didn't hear the click of her heels on the stairs. "What a long time it's been, Zhune. Whatever happened to Henry?"

"I wouldn't know," he says, with a Djinnish shrug. Which is sufficiently unlike his usual style to tell me that he actually doesn't know, and it's bothering him. The last I knew Henry was still playing gatekeeper for the Chicago Tether's upstairs locus.

The last time we saw Henry, I talked Zhune out of shredding him. So. That's where he disappeared to when I was distracted, and didn't find anyone there. Odd, but not anything I much care about.

"One of these days," says the Impudite, "I might believe you when you say that sort of thing. Why not stay for the full set of reels? You might see something you haven't before."

"I doubt it," Zhune says. "Evening, Delphine. Watch your step."

"I always do." She stands there watching us, while we step out into the street.

"Ex-girlfriend? Holding a grudge? Wishes you'd write more often?" I button up my jacket against the sharp wind that's finally arrived, and is doing its best to shove all the fog off the streets and back into the alleys and valleys where it belongs. "I've been in Stygia for less than six hours and I'm already bored. Let's go back to the corporeal and set something on fire."

"Marquette was a friend," Zhune says. He slings an arm over my shoulders to pull me down the street with him as he walks, when I could walk beside him on my own, really. But he knows this place better than I do, and he may have a reason for it. "When she disappeared, some people expected me to go find her again."

"What kind of disappeared are we talking? Mysterious bloody handprints and cryptic messages scrawled on the floor, or just...not there anymore?"

"It's Stygia," Zhune says. "If you see someone around, and then you don't, usually it's a good idea not to ask questions."

"There are a lot of things it's a good idea to do that we aren't really in the habit of doing." I shove my hands in my pockets, and find a lump in one of them. "Hell. I need to find someone to pass mail off to. Didn't expect to have a message dropped on me in there."

"Pass it over," Zhune says, with that tone like he's indulging me. Which is not an indulgence I need; I can certainly find a random suitable demon and shove a small package into their pockets unnoticed, and get the obligation off me.

I pull out the lump, and find it's not so much a lump as a cube. A smooth wooden box built of intricately connected individual pieces. I have seen this puzzle box before. I have taken it apart and put it back together, and the last time I saw it was when I handed it to my Prince. A tag has been taped to one side, with a message printed on it in dark red ink.

_To: The Demon of Hidden Doors_   
_Urgent Delivery_   
_C.O.D._

I hold the box up in the glow of a flickering street light so that Zhune can read the tag. "Recognize this?"

"Oh, _bless_ ," he says.


	2. In Which We Experience Local Color

Given a choice between a bar with plenty of dim corners and a political rally, do you know which one I would have chosen for a conversation about what we're supposed to do with a sudden delivery project? Not the same one as my partner, that's what. There's a table jammed up against my left leg and my right shoulder's to a wall, and the only reason I don't have a couple people leaning against my chest is that Zhune's forming a wall against the crowd.

"I hate you," I tell him.

"Bars," he tells me serenely, "are full of people trying to overhear what's being said in dark corners." And he has a point. This is a very bright corner that I'm wedged into, and I can barely hear what Zhune says over the roar of the crowd here for the debate.

"Hate you anyway." I try to shift my wings into a more comfortable position where they're pressed up against the wall. "Fine. Tell me how fucked we are."

"We can't pass it off to anyone else," Zhune says, "so that's moderately fucked right there."

I survey the crowd. A few hundred demons, damned souls, and large demonlings crammed into one overpacked auditorium that cannot have a fire safety rating above 150--well, it wouldn't if Stygia were the kind of place to have building codes--and almost everyone of them with their backs to us. "We could shove it into someone else's pocket and pretend we never saw it."

"Not unless we're sure they'd get it there faster than we could. I have seen that sort of tag before, Leo, and 'Urgent Delivery' does not mean 'Take your own sweet time about this.'"

"Fine," I say, "but _can_ we actually get this package to its recipient faster than anyone else? Because if you know where to find this guy, let's head out now. Maybe we can leave it with his secretary."

"That's Secrets," Zhune says. "Secrets means you can't get a straight answer or honest claim out of anyone. Secrets answers questions honestly and directly the way Theft hangs out in one place for two weeks. We're handing this over in person or we might as well not bother at all."

"Sure," I say. "And will you recognize the Demon of Hidden Doors when you see them, so that we're sure we're giving it to the right person?"

To which Zhune has no ready answer. I'd be amused if I weren't so annoyed.

I flick away that whole issue. "Let's assume that this person is in Stygia, and findable, because otherwise whoever gave this to us can answer for the bad choice of delivery boys. Where does Secrets spend all its time in Stygia?"

"The Monastery," Zhune says promptly. "A boring place. Terrible way to spend a vacation."

"So maybe we can get this done promptly. We go there, we wheedle some half-true answers out of enough people to find out where the overlaps are, and then we toss the box at the first person who seems plausible as our target." I try on a confident grin. "Simple! And then you owe me a drink."

"I don't see how I owe you anything," Zhune says, "when you're the one who decided to sit in a dark room with noise playing at you for an hour where anyone could sneak up behind you and fill your pockets."

"Might've been filled at the thrift store, actually. I hadn't checked there." I turn the box between my fingers. It wants to be taken apart. That's what puzzles are _for_. But there is no room for hours of reassembly in "urgent" and what's inside is none of my business. Unless I'm expected to be so curious that I look anyway? No. I've heard the story of Bluebeard, and I don't have a pack of siblings ready to sweep in and save me if I give in to temptation. "You're the one who decided to work out our next step here, and I don't think we can get out of here before the rally finishes. Which means we're stuck here listening to god-awful speeches about local politics for two hours. You _so_ owe me a drink."

"I'll pay you back on the corporeal," Zhune says. "And if we're done talking, let's go."

"Through this crowd?" I have to lean in almost nose to nose to hear him and be heard. The noise around us is ramping up, and the front half of the room cheers as they demonstrate the trap doors over the demonling pits up front. Credit where it's due, corporeal political debates are nowhere near this exciting. "Short of going through the wall--"

"Figure it out, Leo," Zhune says. "You're clever. You'll manage." On which smug note he simply--walks away. Through the crowd, because he can _do_ that, the way Impudites of Theft with proper Hearts all can, slipping between people as if the space was always waiting for him.

And I cannot.

How this is a vacation I cannot even say. At least someone's having fun. It's _not me_.

I spend maybe five seconds considering crawling under the table and then trying to fight my way for the door, before I decide that I have more dignity than I have respect for local property rights. It's about two carefully targeted hits of my resonance to create an exit through the wall at my back, and no one ahead of me even notices. Not even the two human souls squeezing backwards into the space Zhune left, as the crowd in front of them sifts itself of the lesser powers of Hell to put the bigger demons at the front, smaller in the middle, and humans always at the back.

I step backwards through the hole in the wall, and nearly collide with a startled Impudite who has having a quiet smoke in the alleyway there. "Hey hey," he says, wings flicking out defensively, then settling back down as he sees I'm not actually in some sort of destructive rampage, or whatever people expect of Calabim around here. (Valefor himself is a Calabite, and he has all the style in the world. Calabim of Factions destroy _relationships_. How do we keep having this reputation of physical carelessness even in Stygia?) "Hey," he finishes weakly, and shuffles a step away from the hole in the wall.

"Hey," I respond, with a quick and nearly harmless smile. "Sorry to walk through your alley. At least now it has a new emergency exit."

He peers dubiously into the hole in the wall, and then takes a few deliberate steps away. "If there's an emergency that sends me running into there, I am soundly fucked," he says, and inclines his head my way in something more of a greeting. As with most Impudites, he's good-looking, in that human way. Nothing like a Balseraph, but he's got the sharply defined edges of a demon who's spent time in a vessel and feels that's what he really ought to look like. Reminds me a little of Ash around the edges, though he's chosen a much less hipster outfit as a lifestyle statement. Dark gray jeans, a long-sleeved black t-shirt made of much more expensive material than anything I'm wearing, and boots made with silver buckles and black leather, suitable for kicking in faces. Got to admit, I'd wear that. "The political life is not for you?"

"The political life appears to involve being eaten by pits of demonlings," I say. "Which does not sound like a positive career move." I slouch against the wall now that I'm out of the press, and let Zhune do the trouble of working out that he has to come find me, rather than the reverse. "You got a light?"

He holds out a pack of cigarettes, and I take one on the principle that if someone really wanted to poison me, there'd be simpler ways to accomplish it. Usually I have a lighter on me; I do not here in Hell, not since my last one--since I lost the last one in Shal-Mari. But he offers an actual light in turn, and I end up with a cigarette burning between my fingers. 

It's not a bad place to be, here in a Stygian alleyway, with the familiar smell of tobacco--or some Hell-sourced equivalent that can fake it well--and the wind mostly missing us, as it howls down the street at the mouth of the alley. The roar of the crowd from the rally is muted by having a mostly intact wall between us and them. "Thanks," I say. "Avoiding politics yourself?"

"I wish." His smile's wry and engaging, exactly as an Impudite's should be. "Shadowing someone for my boss, but the fucker hasn't shown face yet. Maybe in another six hours I can claim they slipped out a back door and go home."

"Boring?"

"Like you would not believe." He gestures emphatically with his cigarette, scattering tiny embers onto the ground, where the muck and darkness promptly extinguish them. "This is not my area of expertise, and I can't even listen to music while I'm doing it. How about you? Lurking about on mysterious business?"

"Not so mysterious," I say. "I'm on vacation. It turns out political rallies are not so exciting as the store clerk claimed."

"If I wanted to see someone eaten by demonlings," the Impudite says, "I'd go to a bar with a fight pit, not a rally. And there's no point in these sorts of political games. Not high enough level to make a difference, not connected to anything on the corporeal..." He shrugs with his wings rather than his shoulders. A brief reminder that he's not the slightest bit human, no matter what his face and his games on Earth might lead some people to believe. "If that's your flavor of fun, I can recommend a place."

"Not really," I say, and watch the cigarette burn down between my fingers. If it touches me it'll _hurt_. So I just won't let it touch me. Same as any dangerous thing I'm forced to deal with.

"In that case," he says, "six hours from now, want to get coffee somewhere?"

"Thanks," I say, as Zhune rounds the mouth of the alley and stops to give me a significant look, "but no thanks." In the image of his vessel, my Djinn has a trenchcoat that ripples dramatically in the cutting wind. Now that's style. Not mine. "Good luck with the shadowing."

"Thanks," he says with a sigh and a plume of smoke. He watches me leave, no doubt up to something nefarious. Everyone in Stygia is.

"See," Zhune says, as we move down the sidewalk, against the wind that's trying to blow us right over, "you made it out fine."

A trio of winged demonlings tumble past us, shrilling as the wind catches them away. I duck away from the one that tries to cling at my horn as some stability against the local weather. Bad idea, kid. "That I did."

"And now you're making friends," he says.

There was a time when I wouldn't have recognized that as a warning sign, but oh, I am so much better informed about my partner than I used to be. "I'm bumming cigarettes, Zhune. If that made people friends, all the smokers in any given city would form a kinship network tighter than blood." I flick the quarter-burnt cigarette away into a sewer grate. "To the Monastery?"

"Might as well," Zhune says. "Ready to be annoyed by every person you speak to?"

"I have been since we got here," I say, and hunch my shoulders in against the cold. It cuts through this jacket like I'm wearing nothing. Stygian weather is like the power of Princes: there's nothing that'll actually protect you against it, but we keep pulling on our defenses and trying to pretend it's otherwise.


	3. In Which We Answer Questions

The less said about public transportation in Stygia, the better.

That behind us, we have finally arrived at the valley where the Monastery awaits. It's the kind of place that isn't just _there_ , but definitely hanging onto a verb like "await" to express its presence. It's built into the rock wall of the valley, with who knows how much space extending behind it and a solid enough chunk to make a small cathedral proud taking up most of the width of this valley's floor. Dozens of square buildings press their walls up against each other into an irregular mass of right angles and uneven heights, though most of the chunks are topped with identical gray pagoda roofs.

The path we're on is worn so smooth as to be dangerously slope at the angle it's taking us down towards the valley floor. It's all rapid switchbacks and no hand rails, because Hell doesn't believe in pedestrian safety. (Maybe they do in Hades, just to be different.) Zhune leads the way for two practical reasons: he's been here before, and if I stumble, he's better able to catch me than the reverse.

Or maybe not. Hell's different than the corporeal. The physics are different. I'm not as strong as he is here, though I'm closer to it than back on Earth, but I'm a damn sight faster, and I think both of us forget that.

Still. If he wants to play bodyguard and bruiser and the one who takes the knocks, I will not argue. There are distinct benefits to this partnership, and I will take full advantage of them.

"Any special rules for this part of Stygia?" I ask Zhune's back, as he picks his way down a run of stairs with all their edges worn smooth and round.

"Don't wear masks in the Monastery," he says.

"And?"

He leaps down over the last terrible stretch of the stairs, and then offers up his hands to help me follow. I end up taking the stairs with one hand in his, and only slip once in a way that would've sent me falling face-first without it. "That's about it," he says. "They wouldn't like it anyway if we knew their private rules too well. The whole Word is built around knowing what other people don't."

"Like ours is built around boundaries and property rights," I say, and smile nicely at the look he gives me. "Well, onward, and that whole fucking deal. Let's get this box delivered."

As we approach the Monastery the decorations at the edges of the roofs--I'd taken them for carvings, as would be traditional back on Earth--become clear as Djinn with serpentine features and craggy Balseraphs. The nearest Djinn turns its head my way; the heavy mask on it wears is nearly a helmet, and shaped as a stylized dragon with flowing tendrils and illuminated eyes.

When we reach the door, it turns its head away again, and rests its chin on the roof's edge.

With all the watchers on the roofs, it's no surprise that the doors--or at least this set of them, as most of the square buildings have their own set visible--have no one who looks particularly intimidating posted in front. A Habbalite slouches against the wall, a featureless silver mask covering half her face. She holds up one tattooed hand as we approach. "One question each," she says. "Before entrance."

I shrug, and step forward. "What's your favorite color?" She blinks at me, or at least her visible eye does. Some cultural references from Earth never filter all the way through the population of Hell. "Or did you mean that you wanted to ask one?"

"Smartass," she mutters, and holds up a sheet of paper. "What does this say?"

Now, this is the point at which I expect a trick question. Secrets. They should not ask any other type. But the sheet of paper is not marked up with any sort of oath, slander, or mysterious piece of information that it could oblige, hurt, or compromise me to read out loud. "This is the sentence written on this sheet of paper," I say, reading it off exactly as the glyphs say. "Really?"

"Go on and head inside," she says, with a dismissive flick of her fingers. "Don't put on a mask or they'll kill you. Next!"

I step through the doors, and hear her say to Zhune behind me, "What's two plus two?"

Somehow, he manages to pass the test and follow me in.

Masks hang on the white plaster walls inside. Not in straight lines, but in irregular clusters and series, as if people walk inside and tack up a new one periodically wherever they feel like it. Maybe they do. The doors ahead are translucent paper set in wooden frames, and as I walk down the hall, I see the ones beyond that are two iron doors, barred with heavy planks, that mirror each other across the hall.

The two doors beyond that are actual mirrors. I stop short of passing them, and Zhune catches up with me.

"Well," I say, "here we are. Inside. What next?"

"I thought I'd let you figure that out," he says.

"You have the worst definition ever for a vacation." I shove my hands in my pockets, and stalk between the mirrored doors, ignoring my own endless reflections within. Or the reflection of Zhune's vessel, as he walks beside me. That's not what he really looks like anyway. 

The air in here is stuffy and dry after the winds outside, and I unbutton my jacket as I walk. The empty eyes of the masks stare down at us--or occasionally up, where they've been hung up in low places. Noh masks and superhero masks and presidential caricature masks and fencing masks and a whole series of veils strung on frames, tangled messes of material that I would not recognize the mask-nature in if not for their company.

The hallway branches out suddenly, and as we reach the branch the air pressure changes so fast the insides of my ears hurt. There is a weight to this place that has moved past atmosphere in the metaphorical sense and entered the literal. Every breath is dry as stone at the back of my throat, and though the floor hasn't changed from its worn stone, our footsteps are much quieter.

Now there's company. Or at least other people to be seen. Demons in this place wear masks--to be expected, really--and also robes, which obscures the Band on some of them. Some masked faces turn towards us as the demons pass, eyes never visible through the holes. And some of them speak with each other in brisk, practiced whispers that are entirely inaudible until just as they pass by, but none of them offer to address us for several minutes.

Zhune expects me to figure this out. Therefore, I will. But there's no obvious trick to the job. It's not a logic puzzle, where you have to ask three questions with yes or no answers out of a series of people where four lie and one tells the truth. _Won't answer a question with a direct and honest answer_ is not the same as _always tells a direct lie_ , and I don't have the time to ask a hundred demons the same question, then analyze the results for what kind of picture the gaps form. And that's assuming I could convince a hundred demons to answer in the first place, or that the ones I asked actually knew the answer... I suspect that "He's just down the hallway" works fine as a lie from someone who doesn't know that the person they're talking about _is_ just down the hallway, from the standpoint of the dissonance condition.

So mark clever applications of logic off the list. The Demon of Hidden Doors wants to be found, or else we will never find him, so there is no point in considering that option. But not by everyone or just anyone, because that's not very Secrets, is it? Which means we're back to a trick question. And those always have a logical answer, if you can work out what the person asking the question really wants.

Secret doors can't be open to everyone, or they're not secret. But they can't be entirely hidden and entirely unused, or they cease to be doors. Architecture is defined by its use as much as anything else, and when it comes to Words, it's a bad idea to hook your eternal soul to something that no one ever _thinks_ about. There's no Essence draw that way. Secret doors are the ones that you know are out there somewhere, and can't find. The ones that you alone know and keep anyone else from finding out. The route for the infiltration and betrayal.

God, what I would do for a set of blueprints for this place.

Hell. I'd murder for the assurance that this complex inhabits space in an actual same size on the outside as the inside manner. I could _map_ that. But in Hell, walls made of paper can hide corridors wide enough for an army to walk, if the Prince who controls the area wants it to be so.

I walk slowly, and watch for someone without a mask. (An Impudite with a mask of red ribbons walks past us, and I don't watch her as she goes. It's odd to be reminded of Luna here and now, but maybe I should've expected that.) Human souls don't count; they're mostly scurrying behind demons, playing the role of some kind of lackey. But the Shedite wearing crystal lenses across a dozen eyes, framed in bronze and strapped down in leather, well, that's not properly wearing a mask. Its eyes shine clearly through the lenses, which seems to be the real key here. I offer it a wave and a grin, and it adjusts its route towards us.

"Are you lost too?" it asks, coming to a stop that sets its insides rolling back and forth in a series of ripples.

"Not yet," I say. And I won't be, unless they change the layout behind us as we go. (Which is not outside the realm of possibility.) I've been paying that much attention. "What did you come here for?"

"Selling secrets." It wobbles in irritation. "Except they pluck them right out of your head and laugh at you when you name a price. Watch out for the Lilim in particular. What about you?"

"Looking for someone," I say. "Where don't you find the people you're looking for, here?"

"You certainly don't--" It stops, and processes what I said all over again. "You don't find them behind marked doors," it says slowly. "Or where you would expect them. That would be too obvious, and so of course no one looks there. How do you find a way out of here?"

"Wouldn't know," I say. "All I know is the way in, which is straight behind me. Completely different."

The Shedite stares at me for a long moment of suspicion, and then darts past me to hurry down the hall the way I came.

I wonder if that'll actually get it out of here.

"That wasn't very useful," Zhune murmurs to me, as I pick up the pace. "What do you expect that Corrupter to know?"

"What doesn't work." I pull a hand out of my pocket and trail it along the wall as I walk. "It's not as if asking a local for help would get us far."

"And after we've eliminated every single possible thing that _won't_ help us and _doesn't_ work, and spent three years doing so, whatever remains must be the way?"

"You weren't listening." The seam in the wall is so fine that I never would've seen it. There may have been dozens already, or this may be the only one. I step back from the wall, and consider the masks nearby. "That Shedite found enough people to try to sell secrets. _Finding_ them wasn't the problem. It's not the Word of Lurking In Shadows And Never Talking To Anyone. Though, I don't know, maybe there's a demon with that one too."

"It wasn't trying to find this one."

"Probably not." I consider the masks on the wall, and how much this place wants to emulate Gothic novels with secret doors triggered by pulling the right brick, book, or marble bust. Maybe on the corporeal, but this one has to be themed. It's not a logic puzzle, exactly, but there is a trick to it.

Eyeless mask, or the one shaped like a pair of hands laced together? I'm not sure what Band this demon we're looking for is, and not all demons have hands in their native forms, but we all have eyes. (Deliberate blinding aside.) I reach out and tap the eyeless mask experimentally.

The seam in the wall splits open, which is exactly what I was hoping for.

Have to admit, I did not expect us to fall right through the resulting gap as gravity shifts in that direction.

Fuck.


	4. In Which We Have Fun With Physics. No, Wait. Reverse That.

It takes a full second for my brain to catch up with the fact that gravity has swapped directions. That's not _fair_ , which makes it appropriate for Hell. And credit where it's due: surprise! You got me there, Secrets. Was not expecting that one.

I jam my feet against one surface and my back against another and slam my palms against the wall behind me and slide to a horribly uncertain stop. Okay. Deep breath. Blink a few times to adjust to the lack-of-light in here. Where _am_ I?

We have left the land of corridors and entered pure Stygian cave complex again. The only reason I've been able to wedge myself into a precariously stable position is that the tunnel is made of rough stone. I resonate a niche for my hands to hold to better, and look up. No sign of where we came from. Down. Darkness.

"Zhune?"

"Yes?" His voice drifts down to me from above. Apparently he's better at dealing with sudden gravity shifts than I am.

"See anything interesting up there?"

"Not particularly," he says dryly. "You?"

"Nope." I lean my head back against the wall. "Right. Down we go."

"What makes you think that's a good idea?" Zhune calls, as I slide a hand down and resonate myself a new handhold. This would be easier if I could turn around and make my own series of holds, then climb it like a ladder, but I don't see a good way to reverse position without plummeting. Which...probably wouldn't hurt me in the sense of peeling any Forces off, but would almost certainly hurt in the sense of straightforward pain. Hell is big on offering every opportunity for pain, and only select, deliberate opportunities for checking out of the whole rigged system.

"Because if we go back up," I say, lifting one foot to place it lower on the facing wall of the tunnel, "we're back where we started." I inch my way down further, and resonate a new hole to grip. "Whereas this will get us somewhere different."

"Possibly further away from our destination." His voice is getting louder rather than more distant, so for all he's arguing, he's not letting me wander off on my own in here.

"I don't think so." My sliding lower foot hits a ledge. When both my heels are on that, I shove off from the opposing wall as hard as I can, and resonate a chunk of the rock away as I topple towards it. Something to grab onto, though my hands are scraped up now. At least I have a solid place to stand. "Wandering the corridors forever doesn't get us anywhere. We can either track a Wordbound by evidence of their Word, or sit still and wait for them to track us. Does the latter sound like 'urgent delivery' to you?"

"Whereas falling through tunnels," Zhune says, as he drops down onto the ledge beside me, "translates into exactly that for you."

I rub the back of my neck, and stare down into what's below. It's not perfectly dark, as it ought to be. There's no obvious source of light, but Hell believes in giving you just enough ambient illumination that you can productively speculate as to what horrors are ahead. "We've already established there are some differences in our dialect. Let's keep going down."

"Or," Zhune says, "we could head up, get out of here, pick someone small, and shake answers out of them. Phrased in the form of direct statements rather than questions, if need be."

"And you say I have no sense of style."

"Threats and extortion never go out of style."

"You told me to figure it out," I say. "Did you change your mind? Should I sit back and let you do all the planning on this?"

It's not so dark that I cannot make out the way his eyes narrow. But his voice is perfectly mild. "If you want to spend your vacation lost in tunnels," he says, "then don't let me stop you. But I'll take point."

"I wanted to spend my vacation in a library," I point out, "but _someone_ said that wasn't exciting enough."

Zhune slides off the ledge, and begins the descent that--well, it's not like I'm forcing it on him. He could always refuse to follow, or walk away. It's his own choice if he decides to make me set the plan, and then follows me through them. "Libraries are only exciting if they're on fire."

God forbid. Or someone. God doesn't seem to have done a lot to stop that, judging by the remains of great libraries of history. "Hey, Zhune." I lower myself down from the ledge until I'm holding on with hands alone, then resonate a hole for my feet. "Were you ever in Alexandria?"

"That one wasn't my fault. And you're the one who likes setting things on fire."

"Well, sure." I make myself a handhold, slide a foot down to work out another foothold. It's slow and awkward going, if safer by far than trying to work my way down through pressure and friction alone. "I set things on fire if they're more useful to me on fire than in their current state. Doesn't usually apply to books."

"Then you should steal more of them," Zhune says. He's not getting far below me, though I suspect he can move faster; rock-climbing has never been in my list of standard hobbies, but he's tried everything at least once over the millennia.

"Why bother? Where would I keep them?" I am bored of this climb already, and not sure how to find the next door. Maybe it's at the bottom.

"Read them and toss them. Once you've had your use of them, there's no need to carry them around. There's a gap down here; mind your footing."

I feel my way down to the gap. It's a crack in the wall, wide enough to pass through if I didn't mind crawling on my elbows. I set my feet down on the edge of the crack, and pause for a breath and a moment of consideration. "A book only worth reading once isn't worth--"

Fucking gravity spins ninety degrees again. No, not to drag me through the crack, that would be too obvious. I bounce against the opposite wall, and stick there for half a breath before it changes its mind again, and pulls me back down.

I claw at a bit of the wall as it passes me and my nails don't catch against anything. Moving too fast to resonate-and-grab with any real chance of catching, this tunnel's too wide to wedge myself still, and a hand slaps around my ankle. The yank at the end of that hurts, but not half so much as hitting the ground at that speed would've.

Or maybe the ground would've bounced me back. I have lost track of what way used to be up, or should be.

"Maybe," Zhune says, as I dangle from his grasp, "this was not the best plan."

I roll my eyes in the darkness. "Yes, maybe so. Let's keep going."

"Maybe," Zhune says, "you should just hold onto me and let me do the climbing."

"I'll be fine," I say, and gravity slams us both against the opposite wall. "Oh, come on! Now it's just making fun of me."

"Possibly," Zhune says, and the tunnel shakes him free of his grip.

We fall gracelessly down the tunnel (or back up? I can't tell anymore, but it feels down), through its opening into an enormous cave that was never carved through natural processes of water and stone. Oh, it can fake that in some ways, with its dramatic columns that are too irregular to look handmade, but they aren't _right_. Hell doesn't actually do anything by running water and wear and sediment layers, and this whole cave system would have given my sophomore year geology professor fits, and we are...falling more slowly than ordinary gravity would make us.

I flap my wings experimentally. It doesn't help.

"How very Alice in Wonderland," I tell Zhune.

"That movie was terrible," he says, and I am almost certain he's saying that just to annoy me. But hitting the ground still hurts enough to distract me from forming a decent retort.

Zhune lands on his feet, ankle deep in muddy water. I land somewhat less deliberately, and stagger back to my feet with cut hands and a brand new rip across my brand new (used) jeans. "I sincerely hope that the C.O.D. part covers clothing replacement."

"I wouldn't count on it," Zhune says, and turns slowly to take in the cavern. You could shove a small apartment building in here and still have room to add a sad strip of green space, a pool, and then pop a radio tower on top of the roof without hitting the stone ceiling above us. The columns around us are too widely scattered to block many lines of sight, but the edges of the place are shadowed and craggy. And there's water running everywhere. "Where to next, master of the plans?"

"Let me think a minute." I take a seat on a stretch of stone that's not actively underwater, though it's still damp. What this is doing to my clothes--

\--I am suddenly aware that I don't actually know if Stygia _has_ laundromats. Something to ask Zhune about later. If they're anything like the retail establishments in the rest of Stygia, using the machines will require active negotiation, trickery, and probably some sort of terrible mauling to a passing demonlings.

"Not a lot of life in here," I say. "Odd. I would've expected more. There's always demonlings lurking around. Maybe the Secrets ones are better lurkers."

"Or maybe something around here eats them," says Zhune, bearer of cheery thoughts. He stands in front of me, brown water cascading over the tops of his shoes. "When did you pick up that Geas?"

Ah. Yes. The one that he hasn't seen before, because the visible marker of it in the celestial plane is a band wrapped around my left calf. Not unlike a tracking bracelet, really. I caught a glimpse of that when changing pants in the pawn shop, and made sure no one else did.

I pull up that leg of my jeans so that the two of us can look at it together. Geases all look like manacles or rings of some sort, and this one is peculiarly ornate. A silver band with ripples of subtle patterns worked into it, everything too abstract to look like anything in particular, though if I had to link it to something physical, I'd call those shapes of long bodies moving between waves. 

"Right," I say. "That."

"That," Zhune says, and watches me with one of those infinitely calm expressions. (I used to think he never got upset at anything. That when he looked calm, he was.) "What's it from?"

"Remember that thing in the Marches?"

"How could I forget."

"Yes, well, it turns out that sometimes it's expensive to even get a chance at survival." I shove my jeans back down, and stand up. "Nothing I can do about it now, is there? So I don't see any reason to worry about it." I flash him a sunny smile, entirely out of place in here. "You taught me that, remember? Let's go find another door before gravity changes its mind on us again."


	5. In Which We Play Games

No one likes the demonling flocks. In theory some of them eventually grow up to be proper demons, or at least big enough to rub two Ethereal Forces together and act like real people, but they're nasty sub-sapient pests that spread goo and haphazard destruction. Dangerous in large numbers, merely annoying on their own... There's nothing positive to be said for them.

Except, I am realizing, that their presence indicates a certain level of connection to the rest of Hell. Even in Sheol packs of sooty demonlings would scamper across the bridges over the fiery lakes, or lurk in blasted corners of the rock. There are _always_ demonlings in any part of Hell that isn't a building with secured entrances (and ideally a tiny Djinn set to watch for things coming out of the sewers or chewing holes in the walls). And while I don't exactly want a horde of them descending on my head right now--to the point that I'm not about to even voice this to Zhune, in case the local environment decides to fuck with us some more--the complete lack of them is weirding me out.

I have chosen four exits from the enormous cave, and we have found ourselves back there three times. Fourth time may be the charm, but I'm still waiting for the inevitable catch. The enormous pit where all the demonlings lie in some sort of pseudo-slumber, waiting for the sound of footsteps, perhaps. I get the feeling that someone in Secrets has been watching too many horror films when they ought to be watching spy thrillers.

"Well, this looks promising," Zhune says, as we step into the cave for the fourth time in the last hour.

"I swear if you do not shut up I will murder you in your sleep," I say to my partner and best friend and the person who got me into this mess.

He nods pleasantly back to me. "It's a good thing I don't sleep. What next?"

"We could keep wandering around in caves forever until this asshole decides he wants his package enough to come meet us," I say, and start ticking ideas off on my fingers. "We could chuck it in a hole and claim we _thought_ that was a secret door, if anyone asks. We could head back out and pretend I never thought to put a hand in my pocket and then I lost my jacket somewhere and, wow, there was a package in there? Who knew?"

"It's nice to see your planning skills are as sharp as ever," Zhune says. "However, if you really don't think that..." He falls silent as I stomp away through the water.

After a moment, he follows along. And at some point he actually catches sight of what I noticed: a sinuous demonling the color of mud, following the flow of the water. It's barely more than a ripple in the water itself. And as the first living thing I've seen since we fell through that door in the corridor, it is officially our guide.

If he has a better idea he can come up with it himself.

The ripple of demonling reaches a wall, and vanishes. Through it? There's no place for the water to pass, with the stone joining with floor seamlessly, visible even in this dim light as a solid wall. But the water is _running_ , and I should've checked this first. Or second. Of course. Never mind the obvious exits: we're not far enough in to stop seeking out hidden doors.

I walk straight into the stone, and through it. I'm still walking through water, but the ambient light's brighter, and the tunnel around me is approaching something like the status of a proper corridor. I've traveled rougher places in Stygia and found cities on the other side.

Not that I expect to find one here.

Zhune's three steps behind me, and takes wide steps to catch up until he's right at my side. "See? All you needed to do was put some actual effort into solving the problem."

"That almost sounded like congratulations. I'd recommend holding off on the wild praise until this gets us somewhere useful, and not merely different." I shove my hands into my jacket pockets, and wish the roof would stop dripping on us. At least we're finally sloshing our way out of actual water onto merely damp ground. "How does a demon get anything done in a place like this?"

"Minions," Zhune says. "Very useful."

"Huh." I kick a rock down the tunnel; it just keeps on bouncing away until it's out of sight and the rattling sound fades, as if it's not much obliged by friction or gravity to give up on its momentum. "We should get one of those."

"We were going to," Zhune says, "but you misplaced her, remember?"

Yeah, misplaced. That's one way to describe handing a year-old demon over to the forces of Heaven. I'm pretty sure they're taking care of her. Penny wouldn't lie to me, after all, even if he's never told me exactly what she's up to in that many words, and I wouldn't want him to. Some secrets ought to stay buried. "We could get another one," I say. "Find some kid that's quiet and reliable and desperate to try out the corporeal, ask for a vessel on them the next time we've done something shiny. Hey, we could get a dog! Haven't you always wanted to road trip with a dog in the back seat?"

"Can't say I have." Zhune is not quite at the stage of giving me pointed looks. I wonder how long it'll take to get him there.

"And we had a perfectly good minion when we started out," I point out, as we amble down the endless tunnel. "Great for avoiding disturbance. Sneaky. Good with matches. But no, you didn't like that one. You should give me some sort of list on your minion criteria, and then we could go shopping for one based on that. Since we're here in Hell and all that."

"Or we could not," Zhune says.

"Hey, you're the one who said it'd be useful. I'm just trying to help the synergy in this partnership. A third person is exactly what we need to make sure everything goes more smoothly." I pick up the pace, so that he has to do the same if he wants to keep up with me, and gesture breezily as I talk. "I was thinking Balseraph. They're useful, they're cute, what's not to like? Or an Impudite. They're good with people. Both the Bands are, come to think of it, which is sort of ironic when you consider how they're usually ranked on that whole nearness to humanity thing."

"We are not getting a minion," Zhune says. "You would misplace the next one, and then what would we say when someone came asking?"

I shrug. "Oops? These things happen."

"Evidently."

Now that was the first hint of real annoyance under the serene veneer. Time to stop annoying my partner. Too much. Well. To stop annoying him too much _more_ than he's been annoying me, that's fair. I smile sunnily up at him, and trudge onward. "How much do you want to bet we're going to hit a dead end, and have to walk all the way back along this looking for more secret doors?"

"No bet," Zhune says. He has found a way to walk through a dim, damp tunnel as if it's the most stylish choice available to anyone, which is entirely unfair. As are most things in life. "What do you want to do when we finish up in here?"

"Call the vacation over, and go find some real work to do."

"And people say that Magpies can't become workaholics." He reaches out and claps me on the shoulder, hard enough to make me stagger. "Try to think of something fun. At this rate, you'll have plenty of time to come up with some exciting vacation plans before we get out of here."

"Work is fun," I say. "There are things that aren't ours that we want, and then they become ours. Somewhat temporarily, as somehow they always seem to get sold off or broken or misplaced and then we need to do it all over again."

"Think of something," Zhune says. "Something that isn't work. If you can't come up with anything, I'll just have to figure it out myself." Which is a threat, if a mild one. Our respective ideas of fun overlap in some places, but Zhune is not above deliberately picking outside those areas of overlap to prove a point.

There was a time when I didn't have to analyze everything either of us said to figure out how to best navigate through the minefield of our relationship. I'm still not sure if that was a time when we got along better, or if I was just more poorly informed.

"I'll get back to you on that one," I say, as we walk up to the sealed end of the tunnel. I rap the wall with my knuckles, and my hand passes right through. "Huh." I shrug to Zhune's questioning look. "Either someone's slacking, or this is a bit easier than I expected. Still. Gift horses, et cetera." On which note I stroll through the illusionary wall.

The room on the other side can only be called such by someone trying to be polite. It's another damn cave, if with the floor smoothed down in a half-assed way and the walls scraped into something like straight lines. This one's no vast space, but the size of my first apartment and about as exciting. Two demons slouch against the far wall, watching us steadily. And between them is an actual literal visible _door_ , with the glyph for Hidden Doors carved right across the front of it.

The demon to the left of the door is a Djinn. Smaller than Zhune, not much smaller than me. It has six dull eyes and looks like the result of a drunken affair between a Komodo dragon and a crocodile. Now there's a demon who should've made up its mind to fledge Balseraph when it got to that seventh Force, instead of Djinn; it'd be a damn sight prettier. A harness of leather straps hooks around its six stubby legs, books slotted into the attached pouches. Its mask is more leather straps, more a weave than a mask proper.

To the right, a naked Calabite that has decided to forgo sexual characteristics stands with its arms folded. No smaller than the other, and steady in expression behind its simple black domino mask. So these would be the door guards.

"So," I say, as we stroll up to the door, "is your boss in?"

"We don't have to tell you anything," says the Djinn.

"No," says the Calabite.

"Right. Does this mean that you're not going to let us in, or does it just mean that you're going to demand something from us before you start opening doors? Because we're here with a delivery which...well, I don't know if it's wanted or not, but it needs to be delivered."

"That's not our problem," says the Djinn.

"I don't trust you," says the Calabite. "A pair of Magpies stumbling around in our tunnels. You should know better than to come down here at all."

I settle back on my heels, and consider the ceiling for a moment. "That's not an unreasonable response," I say. "But I don't see what it has to do with the delivery process. When I order a pizza, I don't quiz the person who shows up with the boxes over their sincerity. I take the pizza."

"You could give the delivery to us," says the Djinn, edging its front feet in front of the door. "Might as well. You can't go inside."

"You can trust us," says the Calabite, with a nasty broken-toothed smile.

"Gosh," I say. "That's a really exciting offer, but I think I'll have to decline this one time. On the other hand, if you want to walk through that door and then claim to be the Demon of Hidden Doors, I'm ready to take you at your word and hand over the package."

Zhune flips open the book in his hands, and makes a disapproving sound. "Now this just isn't true at all," he says. "Heard this rumor before, but I know better. Here, I'll fix it for you." He takes a pen out to make a correction in the book.

The lizard Djinn stares in utter shock for two full seconds. And then catches up with the program. "That's MINE." It launches itself at Zhune, and catches nothing but air in its teeth as my partner steps neatly to the side.

"Couldn't possibly be," Zhune says. "It's mine. I'm holding it, see?" He holds the book up between two fingers, and then flips it through the air to me. "And now it's his."

I snap the book open to a random page. "This can't be mine. I have better handwriting than this." I slide nearer the door as the Djinn's next lunge sends it skidding past me. "And look at this color of ink. Dreadful. I don't want it." I toss the book back to Zhune. "You keep it."

"My main complaint," Zhune says, dangling the book from a set of its inner pages, "is the inaccuracy. We ought to fix that." He plants a boot in the center of the Djinn's snout to block an incoming attack, and flings the book back my way.

"My main complaint is the untidiness." I toss the book back and forth between my hands, watching the Secrets Djinn spin around to glare at me. It quivers, but doesn't lunge yet. Waiting for me to throw it back. "I'm not sure it's salvageable. Maybe we should break it down and check another book. See if the next one's in better condition."

The Djinn squeals, and leaps at me. I toss the book over its head to Zhune. It flings itself upward, teeth flashing, to try to catch its precious notes, but those legs are not doing it any favors when it comes to vertical motion. I'm almost starting to feel sorry for the little bastard.

"Leave it be," the Calabite snaps, its fists curled up by its side. I meet its stare, and smile deliberately back at it. Yeah, just _try_ to resonate me here in Hell. That will not end well. "If you want to go inside, go ahead and take your chances."

Zhune drops the book on the ground, and steps over the other Djinn while it crouches atop it and huddles there, growling. "Very kind of you," he says to the Calabite.

The door opens, and is not any sort of fake-out or further illusion. So what am I supposed to do except follow my partner through the door? Maybe we can get this damn thing delivered and get back to our Stygian vacation before Zhune comes up with a terrible new idea for how to keep us both entertained all week.


	6. In Which We Answer Questions

My shoes leave wet footprints on the parquet floor. The change in surroundings was so abrupt that I would almost expect to find myself clean and dry again, transported to another sort of reality, but no, we've only moved between extremes of decor. Cave outside, polished wooden flooring inside, and if there are any walls in here I can't see them yet. Enormous panes of colored glass stand in polished bronze frames every few meters, their angles and sizes irregular, so that there's no clear line of sight to whatever bounds this space. The ceiling above us is vaulted, and hung with banners bearing words in languages I don't know.

It's not what I expected from Secrets, though maybe I should have. And when I look back to the way we just came, there's no sign of a door. Nor a wall. My footsteps start right beside the spot where Zhune stands--looking confident and unimpressed in a way that means he's not happy about any of this--and I wonder if walking back past them would get me to a solid wall that I just can't see?

I bet it's not that easy.

"So," I say to Zhune, once he's caught up with me again, "what's the polite way to introduce ourselves and the fact that we have a delivery to make? Or can we just stand here making conversation about that fact until someone shows up to accept the package?"

"Either that or look for a nicely labeled mailbox," Zhune says, and rolls his shoulders back. "Care to start looking?"

"If you insist, but I hate to track more water across this floor." I try to scrape a shoe dry against the cuff of my jeans. They're too wet to make that any real improvement. "On the other hand, if we weren't meant to get these floors wet, why is the route here so damp?"

"A fascinating question." The Balseraph neither of us heard approaching hangs in loose coils over a pane of green glass. She is a demon of gray shades, pale gray at the tip of her nose down to dark gray at the tip of her tail, and between those points not a single speck of pure white or black. Her wings drift lazily behind her, translucent gray membranes stretched across dark bones visible through the skin. Unlike every demon we've seen so far, she wears no mask, unless there's some trick or illusion to her appearance that counts for such.

"I thought it wasn't a bad question, myself," I say, and nod politely. Not quite a bow, because I still don't know if we've found our delivery target or another doorkeeper, or someone else entirely. After a certain point, you can't tell how powerful a demon is by size alone. But she's certainly no seven-Force Liar hiding her size under robes, and I would not be surprised if she had as many Forces as Zhune, judging by the weight of her coils alone.

"There are so many possible answers," she says, sprawling across the frame of a ruby red sheet of glass. I did not see her move, and Zhune has gone very still and quiet at my side. "Perhaps most people arrive by another route. Perhaps the floors need regular infusions of water. Perhaps it was a secret test, and you failed. Perhaps the demonling hordes, which lurk in dark places and then suddenly strike, stole my door mat. Perhaps the water is an illusion and the floor is dry."

"I like the last one," I say, and stuff my hands in the pockets of my jacket. The cube is still there, so her vanishing acts are somewhat limited still, if she wants this. "It would imply my shoes will survive this trip. As you might have overheard, we have a package for the Demon of Hidden Doors."

"You're trying to avoid questions, like that will help," she says, and slides down the side of the red glass wall to rest her head on the floor a meter away from my feet. "That's adorable. My name, dear little visitors, is Inez, and you may have that one for free. Or at least that's what you can call me. Or it's what some people used to call me. A poet wrote me a sonnet about secrets once, because I asked him so nicely, and that was the name he used. Do you know any poetry about secrets?"

"None that springs readily to mind," I say, "though I could make a convincing argument for why any given poem was relevant to that theme if you gave me seven pages of space and an eight a.m. deadline. Do you know who holds the Word of Hidden Doors?"

"Do you think I wouldn't?" she asks, sliding out in a semi-circle around the two of us.

So it's this sort of game. I rock on my heels, and contemplate the banners overhead. "Would I be able to tell the difference if you didn't?"

"Why don't you ask outright?"

"Is that actually a good idea?"

"Shouldn't you have figured this out by now?"

I glance back down, and find she's looped around us entirely, a closed circle with her head resting on the tip of her tail. "What makes you think I haven't?"

She chuckles, and rises up to stare me in the eyes. This does not prevent her from keeping the full closed circle around us, though it tightens slightly. She flares out a cobra's hood about her; the inside is a mottled gray that suggests Helltongue sigils without ever quite resolving into any I can read. "Show me what the great and mighty Prince of What Once Belonged To Another has sent my way."

I hold out the puzzle box. "Recognize it?"

She flicks me a smile, and the touch of her dry forked tongue across my palm. I was only expecting the former. "Do you know who made it?"

"Yes," I say, because at this point I am practically committed to telling the pure and complete truth to this Balseraph. Just to find out what will happen.

"You shouldn't," she says. "What a clever thing you are." She turns six pale eyes towards Zhune. "Do you know what's inside it?"

"I hadn't planned on asking," he says.

"What, no curiosity? No drive to dig out the secrets of others and make them your own? I expected better from you, after the show outside." Inez flicks a glance sideways to me, and it's such a _telling_ look. It's one of those _Watch me be so clever_ expressions that I've given to people before, when I'm about to do something terrible that I'm rather proud of, and I should be more worried and less charmed when I see it coming from her. (But we all have our weaknesses, and Balseraphs are among mine.) "Let me tell you a story," she says, "and maybe you'll develop a few more questions to ask."

My partner is not standing beside me. This clever Balseraph and her illusions are starting to worry me. Probably I should've been worried hours back, but I was too annoyed with the geography to be intimidated.

"Questions are a delight," Inez croons, cinching her circle nearer to me. She hasn't touched me yet, aside from that brush of tongue to palm, and I am still holding the cube I'm supposed to deliver to her. "Who doesn't want to ask questions? Who, what, where, why, when, how, oh, even the strange ones like _which_ and _did it really_ and _aren't you ashamed_? Doesn't he want to know? Doesn't it itch at him to make a delivery and not peek beneath the seal?"

"He's a professional," I say. "We're not supposed to ask. Besides, have you ever taken this thing apart? It takes forever to put back together again."

"You would know," she says, and sweeps in to set her nose centimeters from mine, her hood flared out and blocking all sight beyond her. "You took it apart and you put it back together, and I so wonder what was inside it the last time. Will you tell me?"

"No," I say. "Will you tell me what's inside it this time?"

She chuckles. Gray scales slip along the spines of my wings. "How much do you want to know?"

"Not enough to pay anything significant for the answer," I say. "How much do you care about the previous contents?"

"How exciting were they?"

"Oh," I say, "very exciting." I am no longer certain I'm standing in the room where I was before. Or that it looks like that. Maybe I'm there and I can't tell. Maybe that room never existed. I don't dare look to check. "Cooperation across both sides of the War. Shoot-outs and brawls. The near destruction of humanity. I prevented the end of the world, and all I got was this lousy t-shirt. Is your delivery going to be as good?"

"I think you're lying," the Balseraph says, and when she laughs, her fangs are a smoky silver that remind me of. Well. They're nothing like Regan's. "Will you open this box for me?"

"Will you give me my partner back?"

"He's perfectly safe," Inez says, which is, of course, not an answer to the question I asked. "I'm telling him a story. But I can't tell you what the story is, or that would ruin the surprise. Will you give me a poem, little Destroyer? I'll give you one in exchange, and maybe it will be an answer to the question implied by the first."

"Will you take the package?" I'm tired of holding my hand out.

"C.O.D. means charge on delivery. Give me a poem or give me a secret." She whips her body around me, and rests her head on my shoulder. A dark and twisted forest stands around me unlike anything I would believe exists in Hell. "Then I'll tell you a story."

I drop the box back into my pocket, and shuffle through my memory for something reasonably appropriate and easy to redo from memory. Oh, well. Why not the classics, and the ones with recent traumatic memories attached? Those are always the favorite. "Some say the world will end in fire," I say, "some say in ice," and run through the poem to its brief and bitter conclusion.

"Sweet," she says at the end, "but too easy. Too direct. Here. Try this one." And she begins a poem in a corporeal language I don't know, the words pouring out of her mouth like water. I could drown in those words, in the way her scales slide against my cheek with every breath she takes to recite another stanza. 

I need to keep my head and keep track of my Djinn.

When she reaches the end, she whispers out a sigh, hot breath across my ear in contrast to the cold wind sweeping through this forest that isn't real. "Did you understand that?"

"I didn't," I say, though a question would be more appropriate.

"Alas! You know too little. How will you ever learn the secrets people hide if you can't even speak their language?" Her tongue slides across my cheek. "Here. I'll translate. Mm. Listen." And her voice is less fluid for having lost some of the poetry, and still liquid through my ears. "If you forget me. I want you to know one thing. You know how this is: if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch of the slow autumn at my window, if I touch near the fire the impalpable ash or the wrinkled body of the log, everything carries me to you..."

It's not a poem I've heard before. The Balseraph speaks like she's telling another person's story, a dreamy account of some love that's not her own. I suspect she has never loved anyone, or that she's convinced herself by now that this is so; the poem would sound different otherwise.

"There," the Balseraph says. She is coiled over my shoulders, her head resting on mine right between the horns, though I can't think of how the spacing of this would work. Maybe I'm bad at judging sizes in Hell. Maybe in Hell size doesn't matter as much as you'd think, when illusions come into play. She's a weight on my back and a pressure against the back of my knees. If I were less worried about getting out of here, I would be--distracted. "Damp and dirty little Destroyer, you tiny learned thing that fell through the ceiling and came storming through my door, are you ready for the story? There's the door up ahead, and all you have to do is open it."

There is a house up ahead. A little wooden house, but two stories all the same, unpainted and tidy and...peculiar. Too square, too symmetrical. It's a house out of a picture book like I used to read to Katherine, and not anything like a house real people would build and live inside.

"If you insist," I say. "Will you take the delivery?"

"Will you give me another poem?"

"The art of losing isn't hard to master," I say, and walk towards the house. Her weight slides off me, and then she's sliding along at my side, a serpent with smoky eyes and a wicked smile. "So many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. Lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn't hard to master. Then practice losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was you meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster."

I have to pause between the third stanza and the fourth, to remember the rest. It's always the refrain that's stuck with me on this one, not the details. But it's an easily concealed pause, and I keep on through the poem. My wet shoes make no sound in the dry leaves covering the forest floor. This place is not real.

"What is lost another finds," Inez says. She coils herself up into a stack beside the door of the house, flaring out her hood again. "Nothing is entirely lost. That was Oblivion, that sad lady, and those of us who remember her blaspheme her thereby, ever so fondly. What is lost will come back to bite you. Little Destroyer, pretty little Calabite with a soul that doesn't belong to you, oh, you would not even believe what I know about you. You should watch for the Lilim behind the masks. They'll see in your eyes everything you wanted to hide." She taps the door with one wing, and swings open. It's a black hole in the wall that reveals nothing of what's inside. "One more poem, before I tell you the story. Should I recite it to you in translation entirely, and never let you hear the true words?"

"If you don't mind," I say, "I'd rather hear the actual words first, even if I don't understand them."

"You're just being polite," she says, "but I won't hold it against you. Listen closely. This one's a sonnet, and those should always be treated with respect. They're like pretty little boxes you have to open up to discover what's inside, even if you know the shape of the container."

She sways to the rhythm of the words as she croons them out, and I can't catch more than a hint here and there of words I might know in another language. That, and the first word, which is almost like one from the end of a poem I do not intend to give this Balseraph. _Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_ , yes, a quote inside a poem about a war that took place before I was created, and that one would be entirely inappropriate to recite in Hell, if only because of how appropriate it is.

Her poem is lovely and I have no idea what it means, except that it feels true. Which is probably because she believes it, and wishes it to be true. So why not let the words sink in and hold onto the back of my brain, tell me to believe them? It can't hurt. It's a bad habit to let Balseraphs lie to me without even trying to fight off the resonance, but it really couldn't hurt this one time.

"I will put the words into a language you understand," she says, "which will not be as good, but you should learn this." Which is also true. "A sweet dream and sweet thrill, when I was dreaming that I dreamt; a sweet delight in what would deceive me, if only I could have deceived myself a little longer. A sweet not being in myself, for I could imagine every good thing I desired; a sweet pleasure, though not so pressing that at times it reached the point of awakening me: oh dream-laden sleep, how much lighter and enjoyable you would have been for me if you had settled down more heavily and calmly upon me! While I slept, in sum, I was in bliss, and it is fitting that one should be happy in deception who has always been unhappy in truth."

"It scans better in the original," I say. I do not say _So even the address was a lie,_ because it's obvious and because possibly she still thinks that I don't know. Hidden Doors? No, and how very like Secrets for even its Wordbound to put on the mask of another one. I don't know what her Word is exactly, but I can make a few guesses. Illusions? Something like that. And wouldn't Nightmares be annoyed to not have that one.

If she were in anything but Secrets, if I thought it were safe in the slightest, I would ask how that came about. Even a lie would be entertaining. But no, I will play it safe, and let her believe that I never picked up on the hints.

"There's no escaping that," she says. She extends her wing towards the door. "Would you like to step inside?"

"Will I ever get out of here if I say no?"

She smiles sweetly, and I step through the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The poetry referenced or quoted in this chapter, in the order it comes up:
> 
> Baltasar de Alcázar's "Soneto"  
> Robert Frost's "Fire and Ice"  
> Pablo Neruda's "If You Forget Me"  
> Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art"  
> Juan Boscán's "Soneto LXI"  
> Wilfred Owen's "Dulce et Decorum Est"
> 
> The two sonnets come from my copy of _Renaissance and Baroque Poetry of Spain (With English Prose Translations)_ , which is rather delightful as books go; the editor and translator is Elias L. Rivers. I was not, alas, able to find a reference for the translator on the version of the Neruda poem that I used.


	7. An Interlude, In Which We Are Not Together

They stood in a bright space, surrounded by a vortex of broken ice and steam. He had tried to walk through, and if it was not reality, it was real enough to hurt, heat and cold and pain all at once, and a bite into his soul. He did not dare risk it again.

"You understand," said the Balseraph, "that I know your secret." She smiled as she coiled around him. "Isn't it a delicious one? Finely aged and kept bottled up in a dark, cool place for so long. Maybe there will never be the right occasion for uncorking that bottle."

Zhune clenched his fists at his side, and could not tell if he believed her because she was a Balseraph, or because she was Secrets. Perhaps she knew nothing. Perhaps he would never know which until it was too late.


	8. In Which We Conclude Our Business

The inside of the house has a single room. On a table, three bowls lie on their sides, contents spilled out around two of them. To my left, three chairs are toppled, and one of those is smashed. There are no windows, despite what the exterior showed, and the door we came through is gone.

"Once upon a time," Inez says, "a child of Theft came walking into a place that wasn't her own, and her sticky fingers came into contact with everything. Fingers in the butter and feet on the sofa, mud on the carpet and spit on the pipes. Upon seeing a contained world with clear history and possessors but no one guarding it, what did she do? She declared it her own, and she broke pieces of it apart. She took what she wanted and stomped across the rest."

I read this story to Katherine, once. She said she was too old for it, and still curled up beside me and listened to me read. And when I changed the ending to involve more arson, she giggled along, and asked what happened to Goldilocks next. I don't remember what I told her; something that seemed witty and appeasing and likely to get her to settle down and sleep already, so that I could go out with Regan and keep working on whatever job we were on.

"Where would Secrets be without Theft?" I ask the Balseraph. "I can't imagine most people give up their secrets freely."

"You might be surprised," she says. "Come along, and let's see how the story ends."

We take the staircase upstairs. I know this scene from horror movies. There are no lights, only a suffocating dark series of landings and steep, narrow stairs. No bannisters. A musty smell underlaid with a copper tang. If I thought resonating my way through the walls would get me out of here, I would just _go_. Drop the box on the floor and run away, trust Zhune to catch up with me when he can. (He hates being rescued, even more than he hates needing the rescue.) But the walls around me are not real walls, and throwing resonance at things that aren't really there--no matter that they're solid enough that I can drag my fingers along the cracking plaster as we ascend--tends to go poorly. For me.

When we have climbed enough stairs to account for eight floors, we step out into the second story of this impossible building. Another single room. Three beds, lined up in a row. And in the bed to the far right a child lies asleep, golden curls spread across the pillow and dappled with sunlight streaming through the window between the green leaves of a maple tree.

"Once upon a time," Inez says, wrapping a coil of herself about my legs, "a Magpie still in her pinfeathers came crashing and smashing through a house that wasn't hers, and when she had broken or stolen everything of interest, she finally lay down to rest. Now, what do you think happened to her the instant she slowed down?"

I look to my right, and there are the three bears. They were fluffy and jolly, anthropomorphized and given a few pieces of clothing each--mostly hats--in the book I read from. Here they could be mistaken for Djinn. Three hulking gray-brown beasts with bloody jaws and dripping paws, staring at the child on the bed.

"It would depend on which version of the story you're telling," I say. "In the original, I believe they tear her apart and boil her, but can't kill her until they impale her on the church steeple. But the details probably varied depending on who was telling it."

"What does she do in the modern stories?" asks the Balseraph. "With the bears looking down at her and standing in front of the only door."

I nod to the sunlight and the maple tree. "Out the window and all the way back home, and never so foolish as to go wandering into stranger's houses again."

"Now there's a morality tale," Inez says, and the bears advance on the bed. "But I think it works better the old way. Put a little fear of the unknown into people. 'And then she got home safely' is a terrible way to end the story. A spot of blood and impalement satisfies more."

I take the box out of my pocket, and turn it between my fingers. I could take it apart easily, but then what? Best not to know what's inside, this time around. "You must love Virgil."

"Only when he's not being tedious." She rests a wing over my shoulders. Its bones are cold against my skin, through jacket and shirt both. "Do you know the way out?"

"Does it matter what I think it is?"

She chuckles in my ear. "Do you think you deserve a reward for bringing me what's mine?"

The bears leap on the bed and the child in it. None of this is real. I toss the box back and forth between my hands and watch the mayhem. "Yes," I say. Blood sprays up so high it speckles red across the ceiling. "I'm getting tired of being promised a reward and getting 'Success is its own reward' or 'Didn't you enjoy the process' or 'You should be glad we let you walk away alive' at the end. It's enough to make a man irritable." I catch the box in one hand. "Mind, there's not much I can do about it. Illustrious Inez of the many illusions, you can tell me as many stories as you like, or run me through mazes right up to the end of my vacation. I'm just here to deliver this box." I hold it out to her between my index finger and thumb. "That, and to hear some new poetry."

"You're much more fun than your companion," she says, and the coils around my legs tighten. "One more story, and I'll send you off." She sweeps up in front of me, hood flaring. This time I can read what's written inside. Names I've known. Some of them are names I've never seen written in Helltongue, and there is no reason for some of them to be there and I refuse to believe they are there, no matter what I see.

"This is the story," she says, "of a boy who was too clever by half, and cut his own throat with a jagged blade of Discord rather than become a slave. This is the story of a boy who was too clever by half, and ran Renegade rather than become a slave. This is the story of a boy who was too clever by half, and chained himself securely to two different people. We haven't seen yet what will happen when they run in opposite directions." She flicks the box out of my hand. "But you may rest assured that when it happens, we will know, and we will discover which one of them tears away the greater part of you."

"I liked the poetry better," I tell her. There is no way I could call up a confident grin right now, but I have a thin smile that's more honest than I might like.

"It's odd," Inez says, "how few people say that. You'd think it would be true." She shrugs, a ripple moving down her body. "Perhaps if more people came ready with poetry, I'd let more of them leave. You may go, as soon as I've given you a present. It's always polite to tip the delivery boy."

She snaps her jaws beside me, a sudden tiny pain in my ear. "There," she says, and uncoils from around me, her hood folding back down. "That's the tip. Now give me a name, and you'll find the delivery fee in your pocket. One question only, and if you ask one that I don't know--though I think that's unlikely--there are no take-backs."

I touch the bleeding edge of my ear, and find nothing there. Only a sense that something is--waiting. Elsewhere. That's likely to resolve itself the next time I reach the corporeal, and I'm not sure how much I'm looking forward to that. Though in an odd way, this Balseraph has been playing fair. Nothing she's done has been unreasonable for a Wordbound handling sudden visitors to her home.

"I'm waiting," she says.

There are so many names I could give out that might give me information I don't want to know, and I suspect she's waiting for me to pick one of those. "Marquette."

She blinks six eyes in rapid sequence. "What, of the Hamartano? An unorthodox choice, but I did say it. No take-backs." She chuckles, and sweeps a wing out to indicate the room we're standing in. Parquet floor, vaulted ceiling, and nothing else to be seen. "Go along, now," she says, and makes an encouraging motion with her wing. "He'll catch up with you soon enough. It was lovely meeting you. I'll be sure to ask for you again on the next delivery."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," I say, and give her a nod that's most of the way towards a bow. "It's been fascinating."

I saunter away like there's no particular reason to do anything else.

After a few minutes, I am in a corridor, though I couldn't say how I got there. And when I open the door at the end, I step into a hallway full of masks and masked figures.

#

I wait for most of an hour at the edge of the valley, right by the switchback we used to come in. When Zhune appears, doing a damn good imitation of a man who happens to be walking briskly because he feels like it and not because he's nervous and angry and worried, it's like a weight lifting from inside of me. It's not exactly that I thought he wouldn't catch up, but--Balseraphs are very convincing, when they're talking to you. Less so when you've been standing around for an hour, wondering.

Part of me wants to hug the bastard, but he wouldn't appreciate it. So I say, "Next time, I get to pick the vacation spot." He's looking less tidy than he did on the way in, at that. That Balseraph had better not have been chewing on my Djinn.

"You were the one who decided to take in the movies," he says. "This is entirely your fault."

"And we came out fine, didn't we?" Rather than rub at the spot of dried blood on my ear, I turn around and start scrambling up to the switchback trail. "Did she offer you any payment?"

"Yes," he says. He's faster than me at getting to the trail, for all that I started first, and ends up hauling me up the last few feet, though I could've made it fine on my own. "It wasn't worth the trouble. Let's not do that again."

"Agreed. Does this mean we get to go back to my vacation idea?"

"No libraries, Leo. A room full of books is not a vacation spot."

"You never let me have any fun."


	9. In Which We Acquire A Proper Vacation

At the Miss Mark, the imp at the counter only cowers slightly when I offer her the envelope I found in my pocket. "It's for Delphine," I say. "Go ahead and pass it along whenever she comes down next."

"Is it urgent?" asks the imp, who might not be very bright.

"If it's waited this many years? Probably not." I'd sort of like to ruffle her hair and tell her that it's going to be all right, but the first reminds me too much of my Prince, and the second would be a terrible lie. She's growing up in Hell. There's no such thing as _all right_ down here, just temporary reprieves from _entirely wrong_.

So I give her an Impudite-style smile, and wander back outside, where Zhune is playing Tall Dark And Mysterious near a street light for an audience of potential admirers. Or political recruiters. Hard to tell the difference in Stygia. There's no sign of that Impudite I met earlier in the alleyway he was staking out; I hope he found his target, or a coffee date. Maybe both.

"So here's my plan," I tell Zhune, as he abandons the little crowd to come see what I'm up to. "You'll like it."

He knows enough to look flatly suspicious at this statement. "What's the plan?"

"We go to a Stygian bar. You play some poker, I have a few beers, and you drag me out of there some hours later while I'm trying to educate the local demonling population in fire safety and how to identify load-bearing walls. Sober up, repeat, until we are both horribly bored and agree to get back to real work."

"Let me think about it," Zhune says, and waits a full two seconds. "No."

"Because it's either that," I say, "or I start looking for things to set on fire. I am bored, and I don't like every minor bar fight chewing on my soul, and there is nothing worth doing in Stygia."

"It's an entire Principality," Zhune says. "There are lectures, debates, elections, pit fights, poker games, bars--"

"Bored, Zhune."

"You're hard to please," he says.

Like he'd want me any other way. "True," I say. "Still bored. So unless you know of some place in Stygia where I can pay Balseraphs to read sonnets to me while I drink beer, let's go back downstairs."

"They probably have that in Shal-Mari," Zhune points out, which is--unkind of him.

But I don't think he was very fond of what happened at the Monastery, because it only takes me six more hours and a small fire in the corner of a campaign office to convince him we should head back to the corporeal.

#

It turns out that with enough cash, you actually can find people to read sonnets at you while you lounge around with a beer. Starving college students aren't exactly Balseraphs, but that's what comes of resorting to corporeal pleasures for a vacation.

And it only takes one day of that for me to get bored of the whole process, so Zhune might've had a point as well. But it turns into a pretty decent week. A trip to the SUV dealership, a run through a few estate sales, and I even let Zhune drag me through a department store for one outfit since he lets me spend eight hours holed up in the rare books section of a library. Which I leave in the same state as I arrived, thank you very much, because I maintain that stealing from libraries is cheap. He gets to pick the hotel rooms, I pick what we do during the day, and it's okay. It works. We can both act like adults and get along.

Sure, there are a few arguments. Or what might possibly be termed fights. But we're pretty much okay.

Six days in, I end up sprawled across a hotel room bed with a book spread in front of me while Zhune gets the room's hot tub running. "Tell me," he says, "what did you do when that Balseraph made you vanish?"

"We talked poetry," I say, and flip a page. "And she told me a few stories."

"Stories," Zhune says. I wonder what she told him. I'm not going to ask.

"Yeah. Fairy tales and that sort of thing. The usual 'I know all your dark secrets' thing, couched in enough metaphor to make it seem like she knew more than she really did. Typical cold reading stuff." That was no cold reading, and she knows more than I'd like. But what can you do? That's Secrets. It's their job. You can't hold it against them, any more than you can hold it against Lust for trying to get in everyone's pants. (Though maybe I do, when that happens.) "Same with you?"

"More or less," he says. He strips off his shirt, and throws it across my book. "Give up on the reading. You've been at it for hours."

Maybe tomorrow I'll argue the point. Tonight, I close the book and mark my place. "At least we got paid."

"Lousy payment."

"I thought it was good enough. And maybe if you'd been a little more polite, you would've gotten a tip too."

He leans over me on the bed, and taps the ring in my ear. It's a little silver loop, and you can't even make out the features on it without getting right up close. A snake biting its tail. "What's it a talisman for, anyway?"

"Haven't figure that out yet," I say, which is not exactly true. I'm not surprised Inez was willing to give it away, since she'd have no use for it. It's a dinky little thing, and all it does is make me slightly better at lying.


End file.
